


Sicko

by gerbilfluff



Category: Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: Anal Prolapse, Anal Sex, Cruising, Everyone In Gotham City Has Issues, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Period-Typical Homophobia, Recovery, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Sex Addiction, Sexual Assault, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Strangulation, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 09:02:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14375481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gerbilfluff/pseuds/gerbilfluff
Summary: They say you're only as sick as your secrets, and now that Scarface is gone, Arnold Wesker's still got a big one left.





	Sicko

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't a happy story.
> 
> It's partly a true story, but the ending to that one isn't finished yet, because addiction is ugly and messy and takes a long time to recover from.
> 
> Be careful out there, everyone.

Sicko  
by Apricot the Gerbil  
  
  
"Rough night?" his boss asks.  
  
Arnold Wesker jerks to attention, stifling his yawn. "Sorry," he murmurs, and finishes clattering the rest of the shopping carts into another neat row. "Didn't sleep so well again."  
  
"Ah. Up partyin'. I getcha." His boss's teasing smile fades, noticing the customer walking up to the shop window up front. "Huh. Muriel's early today."  
  
An elderly blonde woman walks in to a cheery over-the-door chime, and makes a beeline for the stack of this morning's Gotham Times. The boss has her usual coffee and three sugar packets ready by the time she makes it to the cash register.  
  
"Hm. They haven't caught that strangler yet," she remarks, squinting at today's headline. "Guess Batman can't get everyone."  
  
"Y'know who I heard's gettin' hit?" Arnold's boss drops his voice down to juicy-secret level, so only Muriel can hear. "There was a cop in here the other day, and he said it's all fairies. Y'know, queer fellas. When they're tryin' to get with the guy, bam, he gets 'em."  
  
"Scandalous." Muriel shakes her head. "Well. At least it's not another freak in a costume, for once!" She barks a laugh. The boss's eyes dart over to Arnold at this.  
  
"Sorry," he says after she's left. "I don't think she knows. Your, uh. Old job, I mean."  
  
"Oh, that's all right," Arnold says with a thin smile. "I'm just glad those days are behind me."  
  
"That's our Boy Scout," his boss grins back, giving him a thumbs-up.  
  
\------  
  
"Boy Scout," Arnold says glumly to his reflection in the mirror. "Right..."  
  
He's in the bathroom at work later that day, after the itching between his legs has gone on far longer than would be polite to try scratching. His hand pauses at the waistband of his boxers. He holds his breath, dreading what he'll find... but he slides them down.  
  
And winces, at the sight of the tiny sores all over his penis, his sack, clustered like seeping pink ants. _Definitely_ more of them than there were yesterday. And there's a new, faint smell coming from there, like a finger bandage gone rank. Hope the customers haven't noticed it.  
  
He scrubs his hands with extra disinfectant soap afterwards, praying whatever this is doesn't spread through touching things. Serves him right, forgetting to bring condoms so often... though maybe this is like that rash he had last month, where all he needs is some penicillin.  
  
He remembers the doctor asking him how many sexual partners he'd had in the last 30 days. Sweat broke out along his brow, as he'd stammered out the first single digit that came to mind.  
  
How was he supposed to tell the man, he didn't know, he couldn't keep track anymore?  
  
\-------  
  
The ride home is a long one. He can't keep his eyes from wandering-- there's so many handsome men on the train today. He has to keep shifting and re-shifting the lunch pail on his lap so his hard-on's not obvious to everyone.  
  
_I wonder if that one swallows. Oh, gosh, the biceps on HIM. Bet he could bench-press me._  
  
"Hmph!" he hears a lady in a short red dress snort. "Fresh!" she says, and gives Arnold a scowl, unaware he'd been eyeing the package of the man in gym shorts right behind her. If she only knew.  
  
His gaze moves on, darting from denim jacket, to business suit, to punk rocker, pausing on the man with a pencil-thin mustache nearby. _Wait, is that-- wasn't he by the park bushes last week?_ Arnold bites his lip slightly, eyes slipping lower. _Wonder if he's still wearing that same silky number under his pants. I'd definitely go another round with him._  
  
_Tonight,_ he keeps telling himself through his blushing. _You can wait until tonight. There's always tonight._  
  
\------  
  
Back at his apartment, Arnold runs his hands down over his face with a sigh, then looks up at the tuxedo coat hanging in the open closet before him.  
  
He shuts the closet door. He can't go out roaming again. Not tonight.  
  
What else is there to do? He glances around the bedroom. There's a puzzle he brought home a few days ago, still in its shopping bag, leaning against his nightstand. Sounds like just the thing. He takes it out and opens the box over his bed, scattering pieces of what will eventually be a flock of swans in a pond across the sheets.  
  
It's against the law to be doing what he's been doing, anyhow, he thinks, finding two white pieces that snap into place. Compared to the rest of Arnold's criminal record, "indecent exposure" may only make for a blip, but cops'll still arrest a guy if they catch him at it, even if he's not asking for any money.  
  
There. Two border pieces. And it's really not safe, he adds-- there's maniacs all over out there, especially in Gotham. He should know better than anyone, having met a good deal of them by now.  
  
He snaps together two dark blue pieces, and finds his eyes lingering on them. Just like Mister Scarface's suit.  
  
The mere memory of his old boss's voice is enough to make him flinch. _You're sick fer wantin' that with other guys, you know that? Yer a SICKO._  
  
His brows furrow. Mister Scarface. Who wouldn't even let him sleep in the same room with the other fellas in the gang, back in the day. That terrified of having Arnold's sickness brought to light. What was it he used to say? _Nothin' personal, Dummy. But sickos like you... You're a punchline, at best. And Scarface don't hang out with no punchlines, you get me?_  
  
Arnold's lip curls. He looks at all the dark blue pieces left in the puzzle, and scoops the whole thing back into its box. Maybe another night.  
  
He finds himself crossing his arms and pouting there on the bed, still defending himself against that loud, ugly vice lord locked up tight in his head. _There may not be much to me besides being a sicko,_ he fumes, _but I just want to help out my fellow sick men in this city. That's who I am. That's ME._  
  
His shoulders slump in the silence that follows. _I really should stay in tonight, though. Get some sleep, for once._ Not even counting how those new sores have been spreading, how many nights in a row has he been out, this week? Three? Four? And it's only Wednesday.  
  
But it's the emptiness that gets to him, late in the night. When he used to reach out for Mister Scarface, and base, gnawing _need_ is all that's there now, curling out thick and deep from the very pit of him. It has him up again, tossing and turning, at can't-stand-the-sound-of-his-heartbeat-anymore o'clock.  
  
_I guess I could go out for a walk,_ he thinks through a thin sheen of sweat. _Not to do... that thing I do. Just a quick walk. Clear my head. That's all._  
  
And he's opening the closet door. Tying his shoes. Shrugging on his tuxedo coat. Giving one last tug at the ends of a black bow tie. Not because his old Ventriloquist outfit is what he feels most comfortable doing that thing he does in-- it was just _there_ , he reasons, shutting his apartment door quietly behind him.  
  
_It's only a quick walk,_ he coaches himself, keeping his legs moving. One step after the other, down the shadowy lamplit streets.  
  
And when he realizes he's starting down his usual nighttime path without thinking... _Well_ , Arnold sighs, and keeps on walking. _At least I could be up to worse._  
  
It's true. He's known men who numbed their fears with pipes or needles, chasing dragons right into the grave. Plenty more who crawled away from their emptiness, into a bottle, and another, and another, leaving trails of misery behind them.  
  
But booze and pills and powders have never appealed to him. Running back to Mister Scarface's familiar wooden arms isn't an option anymore, either. It's all he's got left to combat the void, he consoles himself: going out under the cover of night to be the sicko he is.  
  
He scans the sparse few out walking at this hour, comforted that at least he's not the only one. There are so, so many men in Gotham who’re like him. Fellows who, whatever their reasons, are only after a few moments of comfort with other sick men. To feel wanted for a while. So aching and desperate for it, they'll do anything. Even Arnold.  
  
\------  
  
It's a sandy-haired gent he finds first along his route tonight. Cheap gray suit. Bit of stubble. Fidgeting a nervous hand against the armrest of the park bench he's seated upon. Their eyes lock, and linger, longer than anyone's should.  
  
The other man's gaze darts off to the side, and he shakes his head. _No dice,_ Arnold thinks, and keeps walking. Maybe he's not into older men. That's fine. He'll never hold it against a guy for having standards.  
  
Another bench, another man. This one's younger, with short dark brown hair slicked back and glossy against the lamplight overhead. Bolo tie over a black button-down. Manly squared chin. A real dreamboat, really.  
  
The two of them share a nod as Arnold passes by. He gives the lad a smile, saying nothing... before the man gets up and leaves the park lamp's glow, walking a short distance behind him.  
  
_Got one._ Arnold grins to himself in the dark, excitement hammering in his chest as he hears the steady clack of footsteps keep his pace. It doesn't matter where he decides to go; his fellow sickos will trail him across the farthest parking lots, into the filthiest washrooms, and down the gloomiest alleyways.  
  
His glasses reflect what little light they can along the way, like an anglerfish lure, or Charon's lamp, guiding this wayward soul far from where prying eyes could judge him. Where two sick men can be alone _together_ , for a change.  
  
As soon as they reach the turn in the alley Arnold leads them down, the young man grabs for his hand and lowers it to crotch level. "Feel that?" A low, long huff of breath, as he rubs Arnold's slim fingers over the hardness in his trousers. "That's what you did to me."  
  
Arnold gives a pleased "Mmm..." at the compliment, coaxing his hand back and forth over the bulge. His eyes widen behind his glasses. This time, he doesn't have to pretend to be impressed. "My, my. Someone's a big boy."  
  
Some guys try playing around with him at first, too, so he's as horned through his pants as they are. The other night, one man kissed him again and again, tongue prying unafraid into his mouth, bless his heart. They don't have to bother. There's really no pleasantries he needs as a price for entry.  
  
But sure enough, the man starts pawing at the front of Arnold's slacks, asking with that same low huskiness, "You want some head?"  
  
He chuckles and gives the lad a kindly smile, saying, "You're new, aren't you."  
  
The other man blinks at him, caught off-guard. "You can tell?" he asks, his voice small.  
  
"I can tell, if you waste your time trying to warm me up." In a voice that's as gentle as it is determined, Arnold leans in close to tell him, "I'm only here to get good. and. _fucked_. Right now. If you'd like that."  
  
The new kid's nostrils flare at the words, shoulders squirming. Like so many others before him, he slaps his belt loose, digging in to palm his hand over the stiff, bobbing cock he frees from his fly.  
  
Arnold unbuckles as well, pants slumping around his ankles. No underwear-- it would only get in the way. He spreads his legs wide and eager, bracing himself for the prodding weight at his knothole he knows is coming. A hushed, reverent "oh...!" slips from him when he feels how thick this one is.  
  
There's a pause. "You, uh. Need a condom?" he hears.  
  
_Oh, NO._ Arnold's gut drops, as sudden sweat dots his forehead. He forgot to bring any, _again_. His suitor may not be able to see the sores in the dark, but Arnold knows, yes, this man really, really needs one...  
  
But there's a prick butting _right_ up against him-- a real python, for once!-- and his need is so terribly, monstrously loud right now. Even louder than his guilt.  
  
"I-- I won't stop if you don't," is all Arnold says back. It's not a lie. He's not a bad person. Right?  
  
He moans, the question pushed from his thoughts, as he feels the blunt, broad tip easing its way inside, pinning him there against the wall. _Oh,_ but he's going to be sore the morning after this one, he can already tell. He thinks back to Rhino from his old gang. Arnold always did like 'em big.  
  
Sometimes, his guests will curse right then, rocking in and out of the warm surprise of a ready, greased-up hole.  
  
"Ohhh. God. You're wetter than my wife, how did you...?" the man groans over Arnold's shoulder. He sounds so surprised, like the thought of simply pushing in some Crisco beforehand would blow his poor mind.  
  
There are the wild ones, who growl when they feel that easy slide, bucking inside him with raw, animal fervor, shoe heels grinding crescents against the dirt. The clueless ones, whose hands wander up and down Arnold's hips like prom night virgins as their flesh slaps quicker and quicker against his. There are the bullies, who know he clenches when they grip hold of his pale, pillowy ass and call him every dirty name they can think of.  
  
This fellow seems like a real touchy-feely sort at first, nuzzling against the back of Arnold's neck, hugging around his waist as he works his cock in deeper, getting a good back-and-forth thrusting rhythm going between the two of them. He keeps pausing every so often, shuffling with something in his back pants pocket.  
  
_Please don't let it be handcuffs,_ Arnold finds himself pleading silently. _He wouldn't go this far if he was a cop, right? PLEASE don't be a cop._  
  
The man finally grabs his wrist where it's bracing the wall-- _oh, no--_  
  
\--and bites down on Arnold's clothed shoulder. _Oh, yes, yes, YES._  
  
It gets him wailing out loud. The biters are his _favorite_...  
  
There's another bite, right into the meat of his neck (he'll have to wear a collared shirt to work tomorrow), and a third, farther in, drawing blood, all while the lad is still slamming away at his backside, rougher than most men ever dare. Arnold's breath comes in flutters. He couldn't possibly be any harder.  
  
It's the rope winding over his Adam's apple and squeezing tight at the back of his neck that gives Arnold a moment's pause. He squirms, gulping for breath against the thin band, but no air comes.  
  
"Shh, shhhh..." he hears from behind him as he tries to cry out, and only a wheeze gets through. The other man hasn't stopped fucking him-- in fact, he's pounding away fast enough to have Arnold feel himself start to tear inside, which would be more of a dealbreaker if he wasn't into a little pain now and then. "That's it, you scum, _take_ it. Take it all the way to the end..."  
  
Arnold's confused at first, but then he remembers there's guys out there who get real hot nuts for tying folks up. Like in cowboy films, right? That must be what's going on. He's never understood the appeal, but Arnold's nothing if not accommodating to his guests.  
  
He plays the role of helpless bound victim to the hilt, gagging as loud as he can, begging the man, _No, mister, please, have mercy._  
  
He can barely get anything out loud enough to hear. _Wow, he's really into this,_ Arnold thinks, a little surprised that the man's not letting go of the rope by now. Spots are starting to cloud up before his eyes. He'll have to mention something once this is over. Playtime or not, a guy could really hurt someone like this if he's not careful.  
  
But before he knows it, Arnold's shuddering, body clenching around this stranger's merciless dick, and he comes against the bricks with a wet, ragged gurgle.  
  
There's a stunned silence through the panting. The hands at his neck jerk away, taking the rope with them. The man's penis wrenches out of him, too, far too quick, making a loud, squelchy fart noise.  
  
Arnold's throat jerks, trying to laugh. He gets out a weak "hah..." before he's falling to trembling hands and knees on the pavement. Coughing. Heaving for air. Coughing louder. His neck feels like it's on fire, and his rear end isn't faring much better. Guess that little act took more out of him than he thought.  
  
As the other man's still gaping in shock, Arnold's voice croaks up to him, wavering, barely there.  
  
"What?" The lad leans closer, trying to hear him.  
  
"...k-keep going...you can finish..."  
  
And draws back, his whole expression curling in disgust.  
  
"Please," rasps Arnold, waggling his bare ass to the other man. "I won't judge... we're both sick."  
  
A slap, as the man throws the rope at his face.  
  
Arnold looks up, confused, into eyes wide with rage. "YOU'RE the one who's sick, you rotten _faggot!"_ the young man hollers down at him.  
  
Arnold flinches at the word. Then he tries, and fails, to dodge the kicks the man starts launching at his face, still yelling, "You're ruining my _marriage_ , you ruin _everything!_ And of COURSE I find the one fag who can't even DIE right!"  
  
Oh.  
  
The next kick to the head knocks Arnold fully to the ground. He doesn't move.  
  
_Ohh_.  
  
The stranger gives Arnold's body one last stomp. Then he tucks his belt back at his waist, grabs the rope from the ground, and storms off into the night.  
  
Wind whistles through the alley.  
  
_My glasses,_ is Arnold's first thought, when he stops playing possum with a string of coughs at last. _Where are my glasses?_  
  
He pats a shaky hand around for the frames, finally clutching them a couple feet away. Pulling them back, Arnold finds there's a big diagonal crack across both the lenses. He puts them on anyway, and drags a hand over his aching forehead... only for his fingers to come back bright with blood.  
  
_Well, THAT'S not good,_ Arnold thinks to himself numbly.  
  
He's so tired.  
  
"Mister Scarface?" he finds himself calling out, but of course, there's no answer.  
  
Arnold lays there on the pavement, curled into a fetal position in his old tuxedo jacket, eyes closed behind two broken circles. Busy with just breathing in and out for a while.  
  
_What does it mean when you're too sick for the other sickos?_ he wonders.  
  
He blacks out before an answer comes.  
  
\------  
  
Arnold would like to say that incident was enough to scare him off from doing that thing he'd do, ever again.  
  
At least for a few months.  
  
At least for one night.  
  
But there he is, hunched over a running faucet in the public men's room down the street, mopping a wet paper towel over the blood on his face, the raised welts on his open collar... when he realizes the lone bearded man at the urinals hasn't moved since he came in.  
  
Arnold slips his glasses on and glances over to him, curious. Notices the broad, hairy hand pumping silently over a dark pink hard-on. Their eyes meet.  
  
There are so many men in Gotham who are sick and empty, like him.  
  
And tonight has left Arnold feeling sicker and emptier than he's ever been in his life.  
  
He still can't remember what he says to the man, if he says anything at all besides starting to cry. But he unzips and starts tugging away at himself, too, and that's enough to get them both into the one bathroom stall there.  
  
And then Arnold's pants are down yet again, and the man's grunting _fuck, FUCK,_ to his ear. Filling his bottomlessly needy hole in hot, wet squirts. Welling over.  
  
That burst. It never fails. It's the only thing Arnold knows that's strong enough to calm a sick mind like his. To make the hollow feeling go away. For a while, at least.  
  
There's a flood of pain for him when the two dislodge, but he still gives a dreamy, sated sigh to the water of the toilet bowl he's been clutching for balance, feeling fresh spunk roll down his legs in fat, sluggish dribbles. This is what he was after. What lets him relax. Uncoil.  
  
His latest suitor stops halfway in zipping up, gasping low. Finally noticing all of him. "Oh. Wow." He backs away from Arnold guiltily, his face shifting from concern to outright panic as he looks down further. Sees the red meaty twist poking out where red meaty twists should never be. "WOW. OH GOD," the man yells, hands clamping over his mouth. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. _Fuck_ , how did that even--" He trails off with a groan, still reeling. "You okay, man?"  
  
Arnold turns slowly to look behind him, blinking at the stark red smears streaked across the tiles beneath them. Trailing down from what he can see of his own legs. The bearded man's crotch looks like one big red splatter, too. Was that him? Arnold honestly doesn't know where all he's bleeding from anymore.  
  
"I'm okay," he assures the other man. He tries struggling to his feet, pants still around his ankles, but slips a little on the blood. He settles for plopping back upon the toilet seat, to more pain. He gives his guest a smile through gritted teeth and a sudden cold sweat. "Really. I'm perfectly fine."  
  
That he's sitting down on anything seems to scare the other man even more. "Dude, your ass is _not_ okay! LOOK at-- at _this!"_ he says, gesturing to Arnold's... everything. The man hikes his jeans back up and hustles out of the stall, calling back, "I'm sorry, I'm getting the police!"  
  
Arnold watches him go... then glances idly over the first names and phone numbers carved into the stall wall in ballpoint pen. He leans his face against the wall, humming at how cool it feels on his skin. He's so dizzy, all of a sudden.  
  
He skids down the wall cheek-first with little squeaking sounds, finally landing with a _whump_ upon the floor.  
  
\------  
  
And then he's twitching away from the face of the cop who's suddenly there, poking his arm with a nightstick. _Oh, boy. Yup, we got another one. Hey, mister. Stay here with me, okay? We're getting you an ambulance._  
  
I'm FINE, he keeps saying to him. To them. Why is there more than one cop here?  
  
He _is_ fine.  
  
Just sick.  
  
Sicker than all the rest.  
  
The ground spins under him. So many hands, grabbing at him. Flashing red lights.  
  
The darkness catches up with him again.  
  
\-------  
  
Arnold groans when he comes to in a hospital bed, monitors giving quiet beeps all around him.  
  
He tries to raise a hand, and is dismayed to find it wrapped up with medical gauze and tape, plastic tubing trailing from the back of it. It's dark, in here. Is it morning yet? Don't they know he has to work tomorrow?  
  
"Rough night," a shadowy figure by his bedside remarks, making him gasp. He knows that voice.  
  
"Please don't hurt me," Arnold wheezes to Batman without thinking. Force of habit.  
  
"Oh, I'm not after you. Not this time," the Caped Crusader assures him. "I'm after what you know. Can you tell me who did this to you?"  
  
Arnold thinks this over.  
  
"Me. _I_ did this to me," he murmurs.  
  
Batman frowns. "No, that's not what I..."  
  
"I need help. I'm _sick_ , Batman," Arnold continues. He feels tears coming, and lets them fall. "I-I'm rotten on the inside, even on my own. This just proves it."  
  
"Arnold. This was _not_ your fault."  
  
"Mister Scarface always knew I liked other guys. I'm a sicko. Just a sick, sick little--"  
  
"Stop saying you're sick!"  
  
This makes Arnold pipe down, for a moment, at least. When the Batman tells you to do something, you tend to do it.  
  
The lights flick on.  
  
_"Honestly?"_ the nurse there at the doorway asks the figure in black, putting a hand on her hip, like this isn't the first time tonight. "Yes, he's a crime victim. He's also got a concussion. Give the man some peace! Shoo! _Shoo!"_  
  
Batman gives a frustrated sigh, slinking off through the open window.  
  
The nurse shuts the blinds behind him, turning back to Arnold. "Sorry about that, hun. We really gotta find a way to start locking these." She uncaps a syringe and does... something... with the tubing on his hand. "You rest up, okay? You're gonna be just fine."  
  
"Right," is all he has time to mumble before everything goes away again.  
  
\------  
  
He's not sick, the doctors at the facility they send him to keep telling him.  
  
They remind him when he slips up: he shouldn't call himself a sicko. It's perfectly natural to be attracted to other men. True, there's a stigma against it, in this day and age, and that's unfortunate, but it's changing for the better all the time. Slowly. Very slowly. He's not sick.  
  
He meets Gary there in the facility, too. Gary, who found his own low point screwing the guy bleeding from the face in a bathroom stall at five in the morning. Arnold remarks how this is the first time he's found out someone's name afterwards, and they both chuckle at the not-a-joke.  
  
How about that. Not being sick after all.  
  
After the month Arnold spends there, he's _just_ starting to believe it.  
  
But then, once he's out, the late nights come, like they always do. And after a whole two long nights of behaving himself, Arnold's tossing the clothes in his closet this way and that, sweat thick on his brow, searching for the tuxedo jacket he knows is buried at the back.  
  
He's even using the same _park_. He heard the GCPD finally caught that strangler by now, but _still_.  
  
He's not sick, they told him. His methods of finding relief are unhealthy, but he's never been sick.  
  
What do they know, Arnold thinks bitterly, walking up to the black-haired fellow with a mustache seated on a bench by a spray of bushes. Staring right at him, Arnold tilts his head to the public toilet station over his shoulder in a sign the man can't possibly miss, then heads for the men's room.  
  
He hears the footsteps start to follow behind him with grim resignation, gritting his teeth in the dark. He may not be the Ventriloquist anymore, but once a sicko, always a sicko.  
  
He _really_ wasn't expecting to see Batman there at the doorway of the open bathroom stall, cornering him in.  
  
"Wesker." Eyes narrow behind the Bat's black cowl. "You're not supposed to be doing this."  
  
Arnold's tears surprise even him. "Well, what do you _expect?!"_ he cries, breath hitching on a miserable sob. "You don't know how hard it is to be all alone, like I am now! Should I go crawling back to Mister Scarface again? Is _that_ what you want?" He hunches over on the toilet seat he’s sitting upon, burying his face in both hands. Trying to hide. Waiting for the handcuffs to come.  
  
Instead, he's startled by a hand, coming to rest on his shoulder. "No. I want you to be _strong_ against this," comes Batman's low voice.  
  
"Strong," Arnold echoes, sniffling. He rubs the tears on his face against his tuxedo sleeves. "Everybody at the facility said I was so strong, but-- I sure don't _feel_ strong at all. I feel weaker than I've ever been, even when Mister Scarface was around. Before, I'd be afraid of him, but... now there's just _me_ I'm afraid of, you know?"  
  
"It'll come, one night at a time. It'll be hard, especially at first. Maybe the hardest thing you've ever done. But you only have to hold out for tonight."  
  
Arnold looks up into Batman's eyes. More tears wobble their way down as he hears the Caped Crusader tell him, "I know you can do this."  
  
He heaves a sigh. _"I_ don't."  
  
"Then _show_ me," Batman says, holding out his hand. "Prove to me you can do better. Go home tonight, Arnold."  
  
They walk back to his apartment together, arm in steady arm, Arnold's glasses giving a faint glow against the dark.  
  
  
\- fin -


End file.
